Report clears suspended North High School principal of wrongdoing

An investigative report cleared suspended North High School Principal Kathryn Rodocker of wrongdoing following a monthslong investigation. But in doing so, the report alleged other employees at the school engaged in unauthorized activities, including an accusation that North’s athletic director installed a video camera in her office that recorded students, who often gathered there.

The camera is down now, Akron Public Schools officials confirmed, but Rodocker’s earlier effort to remove it appears to have been one of the catalysts for accusations that kept her on administrative leave for the duration of this school year.

The 155-page report, released this week and dated April 17, cleared the leader of claims that she created a toxic culture of “retaliation, revenge and retribution” at the school. In doing so, it highlighted a number of cultural problems at North, though they appear to be matters Rodocker was trying to solve.

Those issues, including the camera and the belief of certain employees that they would not face consequences for ignoring directives, have led to a new investigation into the school’s culture, said Michael Defibaugh, the director of labor relations for Akron Public Schools.

“This isn’t the end,” he said. “It’s the beginning for our office.”

Rodocker told Signal Akron that she was still processing the experience but was eager to return to APS. On Monday, she will begin a job in the district’s central office, where she will work in professional development.

“I am more than ready to get back to work,” she said.

District employees prohibited from recording students

Defibaugh would not provide details of the investigation into Athletic Director Carrie Stewart and others, but he said the report, initiated in response to anonymous accusations about Rodocker’s leadership, showed North High School had “some significant issues that need to be looked at.” 

District policy prohibits employees from recording any student in the school unless doing so is authorized by the superintendent, is necessary to fulfill job responsibilities, or the recording occurs during an emergency situation. Doing so, the rule states, is considered an invasion of privacy.

“I think this report uncovered a lot,” Defibaugh said. “Things like that should not be happening.”

Stewart, who said she wanted to limit her comments due to a fear of retaliation, said she had placed one camera in a storage area in her office – the report refers consistently to multiple cameras – to protect items she purchased. She told Signal Akron it was only there for a few months, though the report indicated it was there longer. In the report, she said the camera was there with the approval of the union, the Akron Education Association. 

But others interviewed by investigator Katy Osborn said they were concerned that Stewart was “conducting video surveillance of students in her office,” the report said, something she denied.

“There were never any cameras to tape students,” Stewart told Signal Akron. “That was never a thing.”

Athletic director denies putting camera back up after removal

Multiple witnesses in the report also said students would often skip class and congregate in Stewart’s office. One, a school resource officer, who is also an Akron police officer, said he observed two students lying on top of each other “making out” in the athletic director’s room. 

Another witness told Osborn that Stewart had shown that she could access the camera footage on her phone and could talk to students through it. That person told Osborn that such an action “didn’t feel right,” the report said, and reported the camera to Rodocker, who reached out to HR. The issue, the witness said in the report, is what likely set the complaint about Rodocker in motion.

“The fact that witnesses used the example of Ms. Rodocker removing the Athletic Director’s cameras from her office as evidence that Ms. Rodocker was retaliatory shows that those staff members do not believe they are required to follow supervisory directives, nor that they could face disciplinary consequences for refusing to do so,” the report said. 

“The evidence shows that Ms. Rodocker raised privacy and safety concerns about the cameras to the Director of Safety and Security, who said the cameras needed to be removed. Ms. Rodocker gave the Athletic Director a reasonable amount of time to comply with the directive — when she refused, Ms. Rodocker removed them herself, in accordance with the decision of the Director of Safety and Security. According to the School Resource Officer, the Athletic Director put the cameras back up and, to his knowledge, they were still up at the time of their interview in February.”

Stewart denied that she put the camera back up and said she had originally assumed that since she was placing the camera in her own space, there would not be an issue with her action.

“This is not like some battle of wills,” she said in an interview. “I started at North High School in 1999. I plan to retire from North High School some day.”

Anonymous email to former school board president sets investigation in motion

The investigation into Rodocker began last summer after then-school board president Derrick Hall received an anonymous email claiming teachers were the “unwitting victims of an unnamed vendetta” led by the principal, who was “sabotaging the staff at every turn.”

“Staff members react out of fear of being targeted and manipulation is a tactic employed daily,” the July 7 email said. “Younger teachers are browbeaten and veteran teachers are met with insidious ramifications that undermines the progress made in previous years.”

Hall replied to the anonymous message, sharing his personal cell phone number and saying he would welcome the opportunity to speak with anyone about their concerns.

Hall, a North High School graduate, said he was concerned by the “litany” of issues enumerated in the email. Teachers went to him, he said, because they “did not have a lot of faith in our HR process.”

At the beginning of the investigation, it looked as though Hall was leading the case, said Yamini Adkins, the executive director for human capital for Akron Public Schools, who, along with Defibaugh, joined the district after the investigation was already underway. She described Hall’s actions as “odd” and “irregular.”

“He was quite involved in that,” Adkins said. “That’s a bit of a concern.”

Ideally, she said, a neutral party would make sure the investigation moved forward in a fair manner — something that eventually happened, Adkins said, with Osborn’s report. 

Hall told Signal Akron he was a “disinterested party” to the case, though he later said he was “surprised, when you look at the sum total of the accusations made” against Rodocker, that they were unfounded. He brought the emailed concerns to Superintendent Michael Robinson, he said, who started his job Aug. 1. 

“You have the community elect the school board for a reason,” Hall said. “Despite what was in the email, you didn’t want to assume guilt.”

Robinson, in an Aug. 14 letter, told Rodocker she would be placed on leave while Osborn, with INCompliance Consulting, conducted an investigation into allegations that Rodocker had created a toxic culture, was unprofessional at staff meetings and failed to effectively communicate with staff, among other accusations. 

Hall said he supported Robinson’s decision to place Rodocker on paid administrative leave. She retained her $143,163 salary while an interim principal led the school.

Principal faced prior suspension for violating district policy

Rodocker had been through this process before. When she was principal at Kenmore-Garfield Community Learning Center in 2022, she was placed on a two-month administrative leave while a discrepancy in a student’s official records was investigated.

She returned to work in July 2022 and received a written reprimand and training on student athletic eligibility, the report said. It noted that in her then-17 years with Akron Public Schools, she had never been disciplined before. While that investigation showed a violation of district policy and athletics eligibility rules, it didn’t reveal nefarious intent.

But some employees at North High School told the investigator that Rodocker had “tanked” at Garfield and that she targeted teachers there. When she arrived at North, one employee said, some teachers were already set against her.

“It appears that the speculation about the circumstances surrounding Ms. Rodocker’s prior leave did not set her up for success upon her arrival at North,” the report said. “Further, it appears that Ms. Rodocker was facing opposition from at least a small group of teachers before she even arrived.”

While she cleared Rodocker of the most recent charges, Osborn said the principal needs to improve her communication skills, a common complaint among detractors and supporters alike, the report said. Osborn recommended that she return to work as North High School principal or be placed in a comparable position; Rodocker will finish the year in the district’s central office. Adkins and Defibaugh said they would support her if she wanted to return to North after this school year or move into a role at another school.

In a statement, Rodocker’s attorney, Mark Weiker, said Rodocker was grateful the district took the time to investigate the complaint “and come to the right conclusion.” He said that she plans to accept the investigation’s outcome and “move forward in a positive and professional manner” and hopes that the employees who complained about her leadership do the same.

“She has missed serving the families and students of APS and is anxious to return,” he wrote.

Janice Weaver, an academy coach at Akron’s specialty high schools who worked at North until this year, said in a text message that Rodocker was a great leader for the school. 

“I truly enjoyed working under her leadership,” she said. 

Problems with culture may extend beyond North High School

Not everyone seems ready to let the matter go. Hall, the former school board president, said he had questions about whether everyone who wanted to be interviewed for the investigation had a chance to speak to Osborn. In addition to Hall and Rodocker, Osborn talked to 35 people — 20 teachers, one former teacher, one custodian, one tech support specialist, one school resource officer, one counselor, one secretary, eight administrators and one former administrator.

Pat Shipe, the president of the Akron Education Association, said she knew of three people who wanted to be interviewed for the report but were not. All three are at Garfield — the scope of the investigation was specific to Rodocker’s conduct at North High School. Shipe said no one looked at accusations that Rodocker changed student grades at Garfield and enrolled a student in a class, giving them a passing grade, when they had never attended.

“These serious allegations were not even in the report,” she said. “We’re concerned those initial serious allegations were never investigated.”

In a statement, she said the fact that information from Garfield wasn’t included is a deliberate attempt to suppress evidence and is reflective of a double standard of punishing educators harshly while not holding administrators accountable.

“As the School Board and this Administration continue to wave the flag of transparency, they are doing the exact opposite,” she wrote. “Shame on Akron Public Schools.”

Shipe told Signal Akron that any issues with the culture and climate of North High School were driven by Rodocker’s actions. But that was disputed by Dana Starvaggi, a science teacher who was one of those interviewed for the report.

“I feel like this is gaslighting,” she said to Signal Akron. “I feel like the revenge charge is absolutely insane to me.”

Instead, Starvaggi said, the pushback came because Rodocker was trying to establish order at the school. The report showed an environment in which teachers were not willing to speak up in favor of Rodocker “due to a fear of retaliation from union leadership.” 

An email included in the report, sent from a union representative in the school to a union member at North prior to Rodocker’s placement there, used language that Shipe said she would “never condone,” including an offer from the sender to “personally pay your union dues back and have you gone from our midst.”

“It’s very divisive here,” Starvaggi said. “There’s so much that needs to change. We’re miserable, everyone here is miserable.”

Monica Kapos, a long-term substitute teacher who spent the fall teaching chemistry and physics at North and is now teaching early childhood education at the school, said she wasn’t around last year, when Rodocker was in the building. But she said she’d rather be at North than other schools she’s worked in.

“This is my favorite school to come to, because of the environment,” she said. “Everybody’s friendly.”

Defibaugh, the labor relations leader, said he did not know if the concerns uncovered through the investigation were confined to North. The district is trying to thwart such divisive cultural issues elsewhere, he said, and is jumping on any allegations promptly to ensure quick disciplinary action takes place.

Adkins, the human capital leader, said the investigation into Rodocker revealed a slate of problems that need to be dealt with.

“It opens this up now for us to start addressing some of these issues that permeated culturally throughout the district,” she said. “Maybe there’s … certain groups of people that felt that that was OK, that I’m not going to have any consequence for my conduct. 

“No,” she said. “That’s not the message.”